COVID-19
Over the past months, we have been planning how to take the project forward, as the pandemic has placed restrictions on us all. The pandemic has had far-reaching consequences across most countries of the world, in terms of health, economic stability, poverty, and education, and the early evidence suggests that the effects have been very significant. It is estimated that 1.6 billion young people were out of school at the peak, across 180 countries, and that many of these were in receipt of little or no education for a sustained period of time (World Bank, 2020). The young people at greatest risk were those in low- and middle-income countries, but also significantly affected were those living in poverty in some areas of high-income countries. It is known that migrant groups have been particularly severely impacted by COVID-19, in terms of their vulnerability on multiple fronts, such as increased infection and mortality rates from the virus, health, housing, poverty, employment and lack of access to resources, with the effects exacerbated by language difficulties and consequent issues leading to education poverty and digital poverty for young migrant students (UNICEF, 2020; OECD, 2020). While the impact of the virus on the lives of young people may have been uneven, both within and across the three countries of the project, and as nations and major bodies seek their own responses (Council of Europe, 2020), the urgent need to address these unexpected events has made this project all the more timely, as we seek to understand the experiences of young migrants and their families, and those working with them in schools.